Waco
– The Texas Legislature has moved to bring a big part of the days
of good old boy politics to a close.

In
six months time, gone will be the day of Judge Roy Bean's frontier,
chicken-fried, corn-pone vinegaroon justice, or the fabled actions of
Faulkner's legendary jurist who, informed of the latest antics of the
colorful mulatto, Boone Hogganbeck, in the Yoknapatawpha County saga,
remarks, “If that ain't again no law, it ought'a be...”

According
to one candidate, Joshua S. Tetens, the legislators have made sure to
move toward a “more formal courtroom decorum” in the Justice
Courts – the venues where autopsies are ordered for those who pass
in suspicious, unattended, or accidental ways, evictions are ordered,
traffic tickets adjudicated, and warrants of search and arrest are
approved following the presentation of affidavits of probable cause.

To
sweeten the pot for the lawyers, the “amount in controversy” in
suits of equity has been increased from $5,000 to $10,000.

But
it's in the rules – the new way of it all – that there is proof
in the pudding.

Said
the Honorable Denton B. Lessman, a Waco attorney who wants to be
appointed, and who holds a municipal judgeship in the Falls County
seat of Marlin, for the first time since that same august body passed
the Small Claims Act of 1953, there will be a new application of the
rules of evidence and the Rules of Civil Procedure.

According
to Mr. Joshua S. Tetens, no more will the suits heard in Justice
Court be known as “small claims.”

No
way. No small potatoes in our future.

There
will be some changes made. From now on, it's all big deals.

Small
claims suits will now be called “justice suits,” full dress
actions replete with motions, orders and side bar, pre-trial
conferences in which it will be humbly shown unto the Court that thus
and so is right and proper and other words to the effect thereunto
appertaining, all decisions and interim rulings, no doubt, to be made
at a glacial pace, in the most complicated fashion possible. We're talking about writs of hocus locus, petitions of panjandrum, over here.

Ugh.

Then
there is Joel Douglas Froneberger, Esq. You will remember Mr.
Froneberger. According to his resumé, he is the self same attorney
who “discovered that convicted felons were practicing medicine in
Texas without reporting their criminal histories to the Texas Board
of Medical Examiners.

“CBS
11 TV Dallas did extensive coverage of my story resulting in sweeping
laws protecting the consumers/patients and requiring health care
professionals for the first time in Texas to be fingerprinted.”

Sounds
like the tale “little big man” told on himself – the one where
one drunk pointed out to another that in the dregs of the whiskey
barrel, Jack had inserted some snake heads – just for the flavor,
no doubt – and the fight was on.

We
all know what Clarence Darrow said about going to court. The famed
Chicago barrister once said you could get a Grand Jury to indict a
ham sandwich – for being a ham sandwich, no doubt.

Someone
else – maybe it was one of the lawyers who went to the federal
penitentiary in the aftermath of the Watergate mess – said if you
ever have to walk into the courtroom, you've already lost.

That's
right up there with what Attorney General John Mitchell said.

“Admit
nothing.”

Then
he stuck that pipe back in his mouth, and stalked away to the
limousine that would eventually take him to prison.

Everyone
seemed to adhere to conventional wisdom at the time. It was nothing
any other President and all his men had not done in the murky past.
Could be some truth to that. Those who weren't soldiers or sailors
were lawyers – or both.

The
truth is, just about every judge in the state gets his job through
appointment.

His
predecessor runs for a final term, one the finality of which he does
not clue in the public, serves a couple of years, then suddenly
realizes he's wanted at the ranch where he must put his affairs of
the heart in order – and other words to that effect.

That's
when he suddenly remembers another good old boy with whom he went
through law school, practiced with, or whose dear old daddy was a
former partner, and urges the Commissioners Court or the Governor to
make that critical appointment.

In
every Court, they do it the same.

No
matter if it's the Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, the
local Justice of the Peace, or the District Courts – the “trial
Courts of original jurisdiction” - our judges make the same stab at
success in each election cycle.

But
it doesn't end there.

You
see, it takes money to get yourself elected to any office, and being
a judge is no different.

Fund
raising?

The
managing general partners of law firms whose associates practice in
courts high and low throughout the Lone Star State receive these late
evening phone calls from judges seeking re-election – as a matter
of routine.

As
they know, he's up for the office, and he's going to stay on, but
then, there's the matter of money.

He's
got them down for so much. What can be done?

That's
where the negotiations take place. So much paid before the primary,
so much before the general election, and then there's the
all-important transition period, etc., etc.

When
he suddenly learns he's got to get back to kith and kin, hearth and
home – then what?

He
donates his campaign funds to the one he got appointed to take his
place.

Such
a deal. Does it get any better?

We're
talking appointments, here, appointments as masters at chancery,
attorneys ad litem, and the staple of any nutritious legal career,
ham and egging those prone to plead out into making that
all-important admission of guilt and collecting that fee at the
clerk's office.

Ho
hum. Stay out of that court room, hoss. Those old lawyers are right.
“There's no justice, in or out of court,” said Mr. Darrow.